Title

Author

Date of Award

6-1-2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.S.

Department

Chemistry and Biochemistry

First Advisor

Michelle K. Knowles, Ph.D.

Keywords

Biosensor, Gold Nanoparticle, Lipid Oxidation, Lipoxygenase, LSPR

Abstract

Gold nanoparticles have been intensively studied for their unique optical features. Due to surface plasmon resonance phenomenon, gold nanoparticles can respond to the refractive index change of the environment near the particles. This phenomenon gives gold nanoparticles the potential to become biosensors that detect the biological interactions at or near the particles. In this work, gold nanospheres were coated with phosphatidylcholine as the substrate for lipoxygenase. It is demonstrated, in our work, that lipid coated gold nanospheres can be used to detect the activity of lipoxygenase and provide more information of this reaction than common assays, like conjugated diene assay and TBARS assay. After demonstrating that lipoxygenase activity can be measured with gold nanoparticles, asymmetric gold nanoprisms were synthesized. The purpose of this was to create a more sensitive sensor for future studies of lipid-protein interactions. The long-term goal of the work is to create a versatile biological sensor that can detect enzyme activities under different environments.